


Some kind of sick joke

by Grimmalie



Series: Sick Joke series [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Forced Pregnancy, Genderswitch, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mpreg, Rape, Thoughts of Suicide, non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 05:24:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmalie/pseuds/Grimmalie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was like some kind of sick joke...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some kind of sick joke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pippen2112](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippen2112/gifts).



> This was a Christmas gift for pippen2112, who specifically wanted a story with a fem!Clint, potentially with a rape, forced pregnancy, and the fallout from that.

The thing about being controlled by Loki was that it wasn’t so much control as a sudden shift of priorities. Clint wasn’t inside his own head scratching and screaming to get out. He wanted to do whatever Loki told him. It made him feel more at ease, like he had solid ground under his feet for the first time… well, ever. Loki made him feel safe and certain, and Clint fucking loved that. Sure, there was Selvig, and he loved the science. The scepter probably just drove away any conscience he had that kept him from transforming into a mad scientist. But Clint? As long as he had that thing’s power coiled around his heart, he loved Loki. Whatever Loki said went. So, when Loki called him to his private quarters, it didn’t even occur to Clint to say no.

\--

“I’m still concerned about that shot you took,” Loki crooned, pushing Clint slowly down onto the bed. He looked healthier, now, than he had when they’d first encountered him. The red rings and dark bags had disappeared from his eyes. Some color had returned to his cheeks. Loki still wasn’t exactly in great shape, though. Whatever he had encountered on the other side had done a real number on him. Disjointedly, Clint knew that the standard approach to this would be to touch him softly, tell him everything was okay, and urge him to get more rest, but Clint didn’t want to do that. He just wanted to do as he was told.

“I told you, sir,” Clint repeated, laying back obediently and folding his hands over his stomach. “A gun’s not really my weapon of choice.”

“I suppose not.” Loki grabbed his shoulders and squeezed hard. Clint swallowed down a startled choke. That was going to bruise. Loki flipped him like a rag doll and grabbed roughly at his pants. “But it still vexes me.”

For just a moment, Clint wanted to cry out and scramble away because, innately, he knew that this was wrong, and he didn’t want it, and only Phil was allowed to… but this was Loki. In this moment, Clint didn’t love Phil. He loved Loki. He trusted Loki, even as the trickster hissed in his ear;

“I’m going to make you remember this, Agent Barton. That you serve me, and I will not suffer disobedience. Not from the likes of you.”

Clint wasn’t allowed to cry out, even though it felt like he was being shredded from the inside out. He clenched his fists and buried his head in the pillow and waited, just waited, until Loki finished and he was permitted to leave.

\--

He might have known it was Natasha who would save him. That was kind of their thing, wasn’t it? They saved each other, and they fought, and they fucked and they listened and they called one another out on bullshit. That’s just who Nat was to him.

She talked him through it as he came down from Loki’s control, and caught him when his feet left the ground and he started drifting again. The world shuddered around him as his mind fought itself and he squeezed his eyes shut, tugging against his restraints. They always said love and hate was a thin line, and he was teetering on it.

At last, he toppled and fell squarely on the side of hate. His skin was his own. He was his own, and it felt like he was back for the first time in days. Then the memories started to sink in again, hazy and painful… those slim fingers gripping him until he bruised, that tongue spitting venom until his ears as Clint submitted.

One minute he was sitting on a bed, talking to Natasha about what they were going to do now. The next, he stumbled over his own feet, stomach heaving until he crashed to his knees on the steel floor, and vomited violently. As always, Natasha was there to talk him down. To remind him that it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t been in control. To remind him to drink water when he was done to prevent dehydration. Because Nat remembered the little things like that.

He came out to see Captain America, Captain fucking America, standing at the front of the cell, talking about a plan of action. It didn’t make anything better, but it gave Clint something to focus on instead.

\--

Phil was dead.

It felt like something had wrapped tight around his chest, and gripped him tighter and tighter with every second Phil wasn’t around, until it felt like he couldn’t breathe. When they finally let him back into the world, he went straight for their apartment.

Everything was where they’d left it before the tesseract reassignment. The ugly brown fleece blanket neither of them ever bothered to throw out was still there, draped over the back of the couch. The DVR was overflowing with reruns of Supernanny, Dog Whisperer, and Cake Boss. The butter in the fridge had gone bad. He stripped down and pulled one of Phil’s suits out of the closet. It was too tight around his shoulders, but he couldn’t make himself take it off.

He lay with his nose buried in Phil’s pillow. Then, at half an hour before the ass crack of dawn, he woke and packed a bag with everything he couldn’t bear to live without. Stark had extended his offer to all of them to move into his tower. It was somewhere to go. If the tower was still in disrepair, he could go to the SHIELD barracks. Anything was better than this.

On the way out, he lit a match and tossed it onto the couch.

\--

Stark’s tower wasn’t home. Not really. But it was something else. At night, when the loneliness dragged him from his sleep, he could go to the rec room. In their merry band of misfits, there was always someone up watching crappy tv. When his fingers started to itch, he could retreat to the range Tony had installed on the lower levels and shoot until his fingers bled. And when the memory of that night, that violation, that betrayal to Phil, Stark had air ducts. Clint could crawl up in them and hide in the smallest crawlspace there was, so tight another breathing soul couldn’t possibly get in with him to touch him.

Two months since the Battle of New York, and Clint couldn’t escape that touch. Even in the airducts, Loki haunted him, hissing in his ear and breathing on his neck. Clint’s whole body stung with the memory of the bastard’s magic. He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut… to no avail. His stomach lurched, and his head started to spin. Suddenly, his skin was too tight, then too loose, and the crawlspace closed in around him. With a groan, Clint scrambled for the vent leading to his room and fell straight onto his bed. Every inch of his body prickled. Black spots danced before his eyes. Something deep inside him shifted, and he was gone.

\--

It was a trick. It was a parting shot from Loki. It was something they were all struggling to cure. All Clint knew was that it was sick. But he was already aware of how much regard Loki held for Clint’s body, so leaving a little time bomb to change it was probably a hoot for him. More likely than not he was laughing his evil ass off in a cell in Asgard right now.

Stark tried to be funny about it –because, as far as that guy saw it, laughing at something could usually make it less scary- calling him ‘Clinterella’ and asking how it felt to have a ‘clintoris’. It might have even earned a chuckle if they knew for sure that this was reversible.

His whole world was fucked to hell. Phil was gone. Loki had screwed with his head so deeply he couldn’t tell up from down. Might as well turn into a chick. He sure as hell wasn’t the old Clint Barton anymore, anyway.

He sat on the bed, shoulders hunched as Natasha explained things to him. How tampons worked, because, in the field, they were a better idea than a pad. The importance of checking regularly for lumps (because that was just like Loki, wasn’t it? Fuck him, turn him into a woman, give him breast cancer to boot). He clenched his jaw and listened intently. He’d have to learn this shit anyway. She showed him how best to put on one of the bras that came with the shipments of clothing that Stark had ordered, all of which made him want to scream.

He wasn’t sure when it started, but suddenly his eyes were burning, and his shoulders were shaking, and his breath was coming in startled gasps. Natasha held him as the gasps turned to ugly sobs, then howls as he raged against the world. There was nothing left of him.

\--

He’d been laying on his bed, stubbornly dressed in his old, oversized sweats and a ragged old t-shirt from the circus, staring down at his breasts. He still couldn’t quite fathom that this was his body, and those now belonged to him. They hurt all the time. At first, he’d thought it might actually be breast cancer after all, but Natasha double-checked and told him not to worry. It could still be his body adjusting to the change.

And he was adjusting. He was re-learning how to use his body. He taught himself to adjust his bowstance. He felt nauseous pretty constantly, probably his changing hormones, so he learned to eat a light breakfast and carry around mint gum. He’d altered his morning routine; not much changed with his hair, and nobody expected him to wear make-up, but he had to keep stopping himself from reaching for the razor after he brushed his teeth. Two weeks in, and he was starting to adjust.

Then Phil walked through his door.

Clint shot up, suddenly painfully aware of the way his breasts bobbed under his large shirt. Phil was alive. A dozen possibilities swam through his mind, and he settled on the most likely. R&D had gotten the LMDs working, and SHIELD was taking advantage of Phil’s ‘death’ to get some stuff done. For the past two and a half months, Phil had been secretly alive. Now, here he was, trying to apologize.

Clint threw a lamp at him.

\--

He’d never admit it, but he lived in fear of his first period. No matter how Natasha had tried to convince them that it wasn’t that bad, the whole thing sounded like some gory B-horror movie to him. He wasn’t sure he could deal with that.

His first month came… and went. Nothing. Bruce suggested that maybe it was a magical side effect. Something to be grateful for. But Clint wasn’t sure. Something was wrong. Something niggling in the back of his brain.

It didn’t help that he got the cravings women usually got, anyway. For a few days, there, he couldn’t help wanting to douse everything he ate in chocolate. And nobody was going to stop him. At least, until Tony saw fit to point out that Clint’s waist was getting a little thicker, and he might want to watch what he ate. Clint dropped the cookie he’d been eating, feeling as though his innards had all turned to ice.

Oh. He wasn’t getting a period. He was nauseous all the time. And, three months ago…

He rose from the barstool, and promptly blacked out.

\--

A baby. He was going to have a fucking baby. This hadn’t happened because Loki was spiteful and wanted to keep torturing Clint even after he was gone. This had happened because Clint’s body needed to support the bastard’s baby.

He vomited into the trash can Phil held out for him and gasped around the tightness in his throat. He was never going to be free of that night. And now… now there was no way of hiding it from anyone else.

Phil rubbed his back and, for the first time since he’d come back, Clint didn’t push him away. He buried his head in Phil’s neck and shook until he felt like he would shatter into a million pieces.

\--

The doctors tried three times to remove the fetus before they had to concede that whatever magic had converted Clint into a woman in order to carry it was also preventing them from finding a safe way to remove it.

He was stuck with it.

Clint sat alone in his room, one hand on his stomach, staring into the darkness as the next six months stretched out before him.

\--

“Thought you weren’t attracted to women, sir.”

“I’m attracted to you. The packaging doesn’t matter so much.”

Clint turned in Phil’s arms, breathing in his familiar scent. He was still angry… so angry sometimes he wanted to light this apartment on fire, too, if only because Phil had finally moved his meager belongings in. But the anger was soon overwhelmed with relief. Just one more night, he’d let his old handler stay. For old times’ sake.

“Packaging is gonna get pretty fat, sir.”

“Then I’ll just have to gain some sympathy weight so you’re not alone.”

He kind of hated how that made him smile.

\--

Phil, the liar, did not gain any weight. Clint kind of wanted someone in this house to experience some of the sympathy symptoms so he didn’t feel so huge.

First his breasts, which he’d only just gotten used to, started growing and he had to get all new bras to accommodate it. That would be annoying enough, if they weren’t so tender all the time. More than once, a fumbled attempt at intimacy on Phil’s part had ended with Clint throwing in the towel because he just wasn’t comfortable.

Then his stomach. At first, it just looked like a little tummy from too much chocolate-covered everything. Then it got bigger. And bigger. He tried to keep wearing his old shirts to hide it, but by the end of the fourth month, the damn thing was stretching even those. He didn’t have to say anything, though, because the next thing he knew there was a whole stack of unisex shirts in front of his door in varying shades of black and purple, each one a little larger than the last. The note on top read:

I hope you find these useful – SR

Clint may have cried a little bit.

\--

Clint read the baby books everyone shoved at him until he went cross-eyed, but he felt prepared for anything. The weight gain? Annoying as hell, but he got used to it. The cravings? There was a bottle of chocolate syrup in the fridge that literally had his name on it. The libido? Ha! He wished. Probably couldn’t get into it, though, when he didn’t even feel like it was his body.

The dreams, though, he wasn’t prepared for. It started with bad memories of the circus, molded with the faces of terrorists and his parents and Barney. It sucked. Boy did it ever suck to wake up yelling into a pillow, his face wet and burning while Phil rubbed his back and tried to comfort him.

Then Loki managed to creep in, holding Clint down, hissing into his ear. Those nights he woke screaming and thrashing while Phil pinned him to the bed and spoke softly to him.

“Clint, it’s all right. You’re safe. You’re safe, he’s gone, nobody’s going to hurt you.”

He kept expecting Phil to get sick of this every time Clint buried his head in his shoulder and sobbed, but the guy must have been born with the patience of Job. Little by little, Clint was starting to forgive him.

\--

Clint got butterflies in his stomach, regardless of whether he was nervous or not. It took a solid week for him to realize that the fetus… hell, the baby was moving. It wasn’t just a thing inside of him anymore. It was alive, and in a few months it would be on the outside. What the hell was he supposed to do with that?

He tried not to think about it, but when the thing’s wriggling made him miss his target at the range, he was asked to leave until his ‘condition’ changed. Suddenly, he didn’t have much of a distraction at all. He returned to the tower and just wanted to climb up into his spot in the vents, but there was no telling if he could even fit anymore. He curled up in the closet instead, munching on chocolate covered pretzels and listening to music too loud. Nobody asked what was wrong. They probably all knew. But someone –and, at this point, it could have been any of them- left a milkshake by the door. A silent plea for him to chin up.

\--

There were days he just wanted it to stop. His whole life had turned into some kind of sick fucking joke. Here people were asking him if he wanted to have a baby shower, if he needed anything, offering to help him up and down the stairs like some kind of invalid because they were all just so determined to make this okay. Like he couldn’t feel Loki’s fingers on him, like the hair on the back of his neck didn’t stand suddenly because he could swear there had been a hot breath against it.

Sometimes, he just sat in the shower, where there was no clothing to shield him from this, and cupped his huge belly, just… staring down at it. Past the breasts that didn’t belong there, down where he was supposed to have flat abs. It looked like someone had stuffed a balloon under his skin and was slowly inflating it. Angry red stretchmarks cross-crossed each other under his bellybutton. And all the while, Loki’s thing squirmed and wriggled until Clint couldn’t help wondering when it was going to burst out of him like in Alien.

He was sick of this. He was sick of feeling dirty and freakish and like a stranger in his own skin. He was sick of waking up screaming at night. It would be easy. He caught himself thinking of all the ways he could do it. Steal a gun from Phil or Nat or Steve. Poke Bruce one time too many. Go fuck around in Tony’s lab until something exploded. Hell, he lived at the top of a skyscraper. It would just be one quick skip off…

But Steve darned the tear in the most comfortable oversized shirt he owned and offered to make any other little repairs if Clint needed it. And Bruce kept bringing back chocolate every time he went out. And Tony made sure JARVIS checked up on Clint, in case he tried anything stupid, or if he was uncomfortable, or if he was just bored. And Natasha stopped whatever she was doing every time she saw him alone to play finger football. And Phil…

He let himself think those thoughts. But he never once went for any of them. Not yet. There was a chance that, when this was over, he would stop feeling this way. He could stick around, at least, for that chance. 

\--

The bowl slipped out of Clint’s hands and shattered on the floor, sending slivers of glass and great gobs of pudding flying everywhere. Steve started and leapt to Clint’s side, one hand on his shoulder, one in the small of his back, demanding if everything was okay. Was he hurting? Did he need to sit down?

Clint didn’t answer. He let his hand drop back down to the side of his swollen stomach.

The baby kicked again.

\--

He couldn’t go to the range. He sure as hell couldn’t go on a mission. So, for the first time in years, Clint found himself catching up on all his paperwork. Most of it was pretty outdated, so he could just toss it aside. Nobody would care if he did that, at this point. What there was to do, though, was still pretty significant. Reports he’d already submitted still had side-reports and statements and forms in every color of the rainbow to fill out.

So that’s what he did. While Steve and Natasha trained, while Tony and Bruce played mad scientist, while Phil singlehandedly saved the world, he did paperwork. Clint sat in the living room reading over it all, a mug of hot chocolate balanced on the now portable-table that his belly had become while the baby kicked and squirmed.

“Cool it, kid,” he warned, rubbing his side. The baby didn’t like him sitting still, and sometimes he swore it liked to bounce on his bladder just to force him to get up again. Speaking of…

Clint groaned, but as soon as he finished the last of the blue forms, he heaved himself up off the couch and shuffled for the bathroom.

He returned and made to reach for the next form, but there were none. And, if he were perfectly honest, he hadn’t even needed to do most of what he’d done. He hadn’t done anything remotely important in days.

Clint blinked and gazed around the empty living room. Huh. How long had he been on maternity leave?

\--

“I am deeply shamed on behalf of my brother.”

Clint didn’t glance up from the tv. He didn’t really need to . Anyone who’d known Thor for all of one day knew what sort of a puppy dog face he had on and, right now, Clint kind of wanted to stay pissed at all things alien.

“Better tell him to pay child support, then.”

\--

He needed to start thinking of names, but nothing really fit. It didn’t help that the kid was either shy or genderless at this point. Sometimes he just wanted to give it something really crappy, just as a little ‘thank you’ for the stretch marks. Then he felt bad for thinking that way. Kid was already fucked, having him as a father.

And wasn’t that a kicker? He was gonna be a dad. Or a mom. Either way, he didn’t know how to deal with babies. Kids, sure. Once they were potty-trained and walking, but as a dad? No way. Maybe he should just hand it over to one of the lab monkeys. They’d be poking at the thing constantly once it came out. It was half alien, after all. It would probably spend more time in medical labs than out. Might as well keep it there. At least they’d make sure it was fed every day.

“You’ll do fine,” Phil reassured him, laying one calloused hand on his belly and feeling for the baby’s movements. “Maybe give it a unisex name.”

\--

Clint knew the baby was human (or humanoid, anyway) because the mandatory weekly ultrasounds informed him as such. By the time he reached the last trimester, though, he couldn’t help wondering if he was secretly carrying a horse. Or a giant wolf. Or a massive snake. Or some kind of half-dead zombie baby.

Natasha took away his book of Norse myths after he mentioned it.

\--

The whole tower had fallen into a sort of an easy pattern. Clint had his spot on the couch, which always had an ungodly number of pillows within easy reaching distance. The fridge and pantry were stuffed with every kind of chocolate known to man. The tv was programmed to record all his favorite shows and, on movie night, everyone waited until Clint was comfortably settled against Phil before they started anything. If he fell asleep before the end, he always woke back in bed, with one pillow shoved in the small of his back the other under his stomach, just the way he liked it.

When the smell of bacon started making him nauseous around month five, it disappeared. When Clint found he suddenly couldn’t reach into the back of the cabinet for his favorite pot, the cabinets magically reorganized themselves according to what he was and wasn’t likely to need access to.

Onesies and stuffed animals, bottles and burp cloths started appearing here and there while Tony baby-proofed the living area and Steve painted one of the spare rooms with broad trees, blue birds, and little purple flowers. Somehow, his pregnancy had become a major part of everybody’s life.

It wasn’t until he saw Bruce and Phil looking at a catalog for different types of cribs that it hit him. This wasn’t Loki’s kid. Not anymore, not ever again. But it wasn’t just Clint’s kid, either. It belonged to all of them. The Avengers’ baby.

The thought was strangely comforting.

\--

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

Natasha paused, and Clint was tempted to whine a little in protest, because God! His back hurt like hell, and her fingers were like heaven as they worked the muscles loose. At a length, she resumed her ministrations.

“Which part?”

“All of it. I didn’t choose this.”

“No. But if you get your choice taken away, you find some level of control to make up for it.”

Clint let one hand rest on his belly, feeling the baby in there, kicking and wriggling. It was running out of room. He’d have to get control of this soon. If he didn’t go back to being a man. If the baby came out wrong. If… if it hurt as bad as it was supposed to… No, he absolutely wasn’t going to let himself think about that.

“Do you ever wish you were doing this instead of me?”

Natasha stopped again, but this time he’d just been asking for it. When they were together, they’d never discussed kids. She let it slide one day that no, she couldn’t have them. The choice had been taken away when she was a child.

“I suppose,” she murmured. “But it is what it is.”

Clint swallowed and reached back to squeeze her hand.

“You’re godmother, okay?”

Natasha didn’t move for a full minute. Then, she pressed a gentle kiss to his cheekbone, and if it was a little wet, well. He didn’t need to think about that.

\--

Clint had been a woman for almost seven months now, but he hadn’t exactly been accepted by anyone as one. He remained firmly male in everyone’s minds, including his own, in spite of the boobs and the belly. So it came as something of a surprise when Natasha, Pepper, Dr. Foster, and even that mouthy intern Darcy kidnapped him. 

Well, ‘kidnapped’ was a loose term. They couldn’t exactly throw a bag over his head and carry him off. Right now, pretty much the only Thor could carry him comfortably, anyway. They did, however, show up in his room with new, black sweats and a fleecy purple hoodie.

“You’re coming to lunch,” Pepper instructed firmly. “And you’re going to like it.”

Natasha shooed the others out while he changed (just because his body looked like a woman’s, now, didn’t mean he suddenly wanted to be naked in front of them. Particularly Darcy. She’d have… opinions) and helped him waddle out to the car waiting for them.

He felt big and clumsy and severely out of place surrounded by these women. Nat he was comfortable with, though, so he edged closer to her. Dr. Foster and Darcy kept trying to hide their furtive glances at his belly until he finally gave in and let them feel. The look on Dr. Foster’s face when the baby kicked made it worth it.

They ended up going to some Italian place, where he wasn’t allowed to ask for anything chocolatey on his food. It was all right, though. Natasha slipped him a chocolate bar under the table and he broke it over the top of the salad while the waiter was watching.

\--

He was running a marathon of Top Shot when it started. It was just a little twinge in his back a couple of times every episode. He made a mental note to ask Natasha to help him work it out later and went back to his show.

Then his stomach started cramping a little, too. Then it started cramping a lot. He groaned, rubbing one hand over it again and again. Not only were they growing worse, they were lasting longer. He had to tell himself that this was those fake Braxton-hicks contractions, because this couldn’t really be happening. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t dad material or mom material or whatever the fuck he was supposed to be. He just needed a few more days to get ready…

There was an unmistakable gush and he froze, staring blankly at the screen as water soaked into the carpet. This was happening. Christ, this was happening. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t.

After that, his body just sort of decided ‘Whelp, passed the point of no return. No use pussy-footing around it anymore’, because the contractions went from bad to horrible. He curled up on the couch, arms wrapped tight around his rock-hard stomach, and struggled to breathed through it. He kept wanting to get up, walk around, find some help because he’d sure as hell forgotten what he was supposed to do, but the sudden, irrational fear that the baby might just fall out slammed into him, and he couldn’t shake it long enough to stand.

Thank God for Tony’s AI, because the next thing he knew Phil was there running his fingers through Clint’s hair and telling him everything was going to be okay in that bullshit civilian-wrangling voice of his. Then he was being lifted and, wow. He’d been wrong. Looked like Steve could comfortably lift him after all, given the proper amount of adrenaline.

\--

It hurt. The doctors crowded around him, not-so-quietly discussing how quickly he had entered active labor, and that it might have something to do with his magically altered anatomy. The baby kicked frantically. It was just as scared as he was.

Then it shifted lower and the doctors nodded solemnly.

“I’d give it an hour. Two at the most.”

\--

Phil stuck with him through it, and Clint kept shifting between feeling grateful and wanting to ask for Natasha instead. But Phil didn’t complain, not when Clint groaned, then howled every two minutes because they wouldn’t give him a fucking epidural (negative effect on the magic, they said. Fucking sadists). He was fairly certain he managed to dislocate one of Phil’s fingers. Phil didn’t care.

\--

Everything started getting a little fuzzy. Strange shapes dancing at the corners of his vision. He breathed deeply trying to fight past the exhaustion. Just had to get this one thing done, then he could sleep. Another contraction, and with it came the overwhelming urge to push.

Clint gasped and shifted, preparing to bear down as the doctors encouraged him.

“This one’s going to hurt.” Like it hadn’t hurt before, the bastards! “There may be some tearing, but when the next contraction starts, I need you to push.”

Clint blinked. His vision swam. The next contraction started to build at the base of his spine, tightening around him once again. Over the doctor’s shoulder, a familiar figure in black and green smirked at him.

Clint screamed.

\--

She was small, way too small to have seriously made him balloon up as big as he had. As he still was. Docs said it would take a while before the swelling went down, and even then he’d still have to do crunches until he pissed blood. Outstanding.

But it wasn’t so bad, when he looked at her. Sure she was red and wrinkly and looked more like a lizard than not but, well… she was his. He didn’t feel that overwhelming swell of love that new moms were supposed to get. Neither did the sight of her make him want to puke. Cause yeah, the way she’d come into being and the things he’d had to go through for were hell. But she was his.

He wasn’t too careful with her name. Sure, he was tempted for just a minute to go with ‘Arrow’, since apparently that was a real name, but that was about as bad as naming her ‘Robin’ or ‘Katniss’. Stark was going to give her enough shit for having a dad-mom.

In the end, he went with the first name Phil suggested that he didn’t hate. Cathy. Sure, there’s probably be a dozen other Cathys in school, but it was easy to remember.

The docs kept him and baby Cathy overnight for the perfunctory poking and prodding. His vitals were normal. Well. Normal for a woman who’d just given birth. And Cathy was normal, too, aside from the fact that the equipment tended to futz up around her.

\--

Some days, he curled up in the chair in Cathy’s nursery and just stared at her, feeling strangely empty. 

\--

The breasts were going to be a problem, because every time Cathy cried, they got heavy. Apparently, he was supposed to feed her with them. Fuck that, they were sticking to formula. It took a solid month for his body to catch the hint and stop responding that way.

The day it stopped responding, though, was the day the world started spinning just as he stepped out of the shower. He stumbled, reaching for the counter to right himself a second too late as he went crashing to the ground.

\--

“I don’t think she recognizes me.”

“Of course she does. You don’t look that different.”

Clint frowned down at baby Cathy, who gurgled happily as pulled at the drawstrings on what had swiftly become his favorite purple fleece hoodie. She didn’t have long term memory, but he still worried that, without the familiar clothes he’d worn as a woman, she wouldn’t recognize him. Phil pressed a kiss to his shoulder.

“You worry too much.”

\--

It felt good to be back in his own body again. Suddenly, the excess weight just melted off, everything tasted the way it was supposed to, and he was allowed to head down to the range again.

He brought baby Cathy with him when he was sure nobody would be there with guns. Time for her to learn what her daddy did for a living.

\--

Natasha holding baby Cathy was one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking things Clint ever had the chance to see. She didn’t strike anyone as the kid-friendly type, and for good reason. If she hadn’t been sterilized, she probably wouldn’t be good with them at all. But she was. She treated Cathy like a treasure, and it was so evident in each time she bounced the baby, playing with her growing, dark curls, or bathed her in the sink.

Baby Cathy didn’t really have a mom. But she had a Natasha.

“That was a good decision,” Phil remarked as he watched them. “Making Natasha the godmother.”

Clint smiled and went back to the bottle cleaning (Christ did Cathy eat a lot).

“There was never anyone else.”

\--

Phil was gone for the first time since he came back from the grave. It was just a quick mission. He had to oversee an installation in Paraguay. Back in a week. All the same, though, Clint didn’t want to sleep in that big, empty bed alone. So he set up a little cot in the corner of the nursery to keep an eye on baby Cathy.

Which was why he was there when Loki came back.

“Hello, Agent Barton.”

Clint went stiff. His fingers itched for his bow because that bastard, that fucking monster, was leaning over the crib, brushing his fingers (the same fingers that had gripped Clint so tight, left bruises behind) through baby Cathy’s hair.

“How did you get here?”

“What is the term? A good magician never reveals his secrets. Although I admit, sometimes I surprise even myself.” He smiled bitterly at Clint. “I never imagined my magic would have such an effect on you.”

“Yeah. Well. Good for you and your magic.”

Clint rose and reached for the knife he kept under his pillow, because some habits never died.

Loki chuckled and turned back to the baby.

“I always loved children,” he mused. “I should thank you for carrying her for me. You’ve done a commendable job.”

“Thanks. You can back the fuck off, now.”

“After all our time together?” Loki’s lips pulled into that wide, horrible sneer of his. “If you insist.”

Clint’s eyes widened and he flung the knife directly at Loki’s head.

Thump!

It buried itself in the wall, right in the heart of one of Steve’s little blue birds. Loki was gone.

So was baby Cathy.

\--

Nobody knew where Loki went. Nobody even knew that Loki had escaped before he showed up in the nursery. Thor left immediately to search, but there wasn’t anything they could do on earth to help.

Clint sat in the nursery, staring at that crib. That empty crib.

He’d hated her. At first, when he found out she was the reason he’d changed, the reason he’d never be able to let go of what happened, he’d hated her so fucking much. Until the day that he didn’t. She was the little girl who made Natasha smile, who watched him with wide eyes while he practiced at the range. She was the girl who liked to grab at Phil’s ties and squealed with joy when Steve held her aloft. She made Bruce laugh and grabbed Thor’s hair and loved staring at Tony’s arc reactor. She was everyone’s baby.

Now she was gone.

Phil came back at the end of the week to find Clint sitting in that nursery, holding one of her many stuffed animals. He didn’t try to drag Clint back to their room. He just grabbed a cot of his own and moved in with Clint.

Clint woke that first night with Phil, his cheeks wet, his shoulders shaking. Phil rubbed his arm and brushed his lips against the back of Clint’s neck.

“I’m not going to say it’s okay,” he breathed.

“It’s not,” Clint croaked, staring through the dark at the purple flowers on the wall. It wasn’t okay. It felt like he’d had solid ground and it was ripped out from underneath him once again. “Fuck, Phil… I can’t keep on like this.”

“I know. What do you want to do?”

Clint swallowed. What did he want to do about it?

“I want to get her back.”

Phil sighed and squeezed Clint’s arm.

“Okay. We’ll get her back.”


End file.
